The Space Force operates satellites that can track threats hundreds of miles away, like missile launches on Earth or other spacecraft in orbit. Now, one of the service’s acquisition arms wants to make sure USSF satellites can also spot dangers right next to or on board them.
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office announced its new “Prime Fusion Pilot Accelerator” program with the venture studio FedTech on Jan. 29, pairing small, innovative companies to work together on what the office is calling “own-ship awareness.”
It’s a new term the Space RCO has come up with to describe a mission that’s slightly different from space domain awareness and space situational awareness—areas where the rest of the Space Force is investing significant money, said Matt Fetrow, director of strategic communications at the Space RCO.
“All that’s great, and all that’s super important, but that’s not exactly what we need here,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We really want to focus on the operator’s needs for awareness. There’s someone on console who is responsible for the health of that satellite, responsible is [for?] deciding where to move it or not, and that person needs awareness of their own ship.”
That means putting sensors and software on-board that can give operators awareness of “anomalies, hazards, and threats” to their satellite, per a Space RCO release. Fetrow said that could include anything from an adversary trying to attack to something breaking on the satellite. The Space Force has ways of tracking such problems, but the RCO wants to find ways to make sure operators can understand them as they’re happening.
Putting things like cameras, imaging systems, and radio frequency sensors on satellites is nothing new, Fetrow acknowledged. But there are challenges to doing so for own-ship awareness that need to be solved.
One is finding the right balance of own-ship awareness sensors to other payloads—the Space Force could load up its satellites with sensors to make sure it is aware of any threats in any direction, but that “would overwhelm the satellite, you’d have no space for anything else,” Fetrow said.
Another is making sure these self-protection sensors come integrated or standard on satellite buses. Right now, the Space Force often buys its payloads and buses separately and has to integrate them after. But the Space RCO doesn’t want to follow that model, given its focus on fielding things fast.
“We buy full systems that are intended for operational use,” Fetrow said. “We buy systems that our operators will be able to count on to do their missions. And so we don’t buy sensors or algorithms or piece parts. I need to buy a full system.”
To attack the problem, the Space RCO is pairing 10 companies into five teams to work on solutions and new technology for own-ship awareness over the next eight weeks, before presenting their ideas in a March pitch event at the RCO’s headquarters in Albuquerque, N.M.
The teams are:
- Active Vigilance, which has developed an automated, on-board diagnostic system for spacecraft, and Turion Space, a satellite builder focused on cleaning up orbital debris and non-Earth imaging.
- Digantara, which is working space situational awareness capabilities, and Anduril, the buzzy defense startup looking to break into space with its automation software
- Geost, a payload builder that makes small cameras and sensors, and Impulse Space, which focuses on “space transportation” and maneuvering in orbit.
- Raptor Dynamix, a software firm focused on “AI-enabled space operations, on-orbit dynamic space operations, and threat characterization” and True Anomaly, which builds both spacecraft and mission control software to create a common operating picture.
- TRL11, which touts the use of video and AI for spacecraft operations and situational awareness, and BlackVe, a new, little-known firm working on national security missions for spacecraft.
Fetrow said the Space RCO doesn’t have a procurement program set up to immediately start buying pitches from the five teams in March. But the office, which is typically tight-lipped about many of its programs, is hopeful that it can incorporate what it sees into future efforts, he said.